


Hordak Meets a First One

by Zeugma46



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Gen, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) Season 5 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:14:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24502210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zeugma46/pseuds/Zeugma46
Summary: Back in his sanctum, his sensors and screens had gone wild with noise: beeps and alarms as a disturbance triggered them. A ripple as a connection was made outside of this pocket dimension. Nothing for all the years he had been trapped here until this morning.Or, When Hordak Meets Adora
Relationships: Adora & Hordak (She-Ra)
Kudos: 89





	Hordak Meets a First One

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure we were all moved by that flashback in the finale. I just wanted to explore it a little more since for most of the series they were the only two non-Etherians on the planet and I could see a little bit of that connection in Hordak's memory.

The plains stretched on, the tall grass shimmering as it bent like waves with the wind. No sound but the whisper of the grass as it rasped together.

Hordak looked back down at his tracker pad. Back in his sanctum, his sensors and screens had gone wild with noise: beeps and alarms as a disturbance triggered them. A ripple as a connection was made outside of this pocket dimension. Nothing for all the years he had been trapped here until this morning.

He had taken the Horde’s fastest skiff with his equipment in tow. If the trans-dimensional connection held, he could send a signal out to Horde Prime once he was near. True, he hadn’t accomplished his self-appointed task of conquering the entire planet yet but when would he get this opportunity again? Now that he was at the location of the trans-dimensional connection, his tracker pad was silent. There was nothing once more.

Hordak threw the pad to the floor of the skiff and yelled. First a yell of pure frustration, disappointment, and anger, before it evolved into:

“Of course! How could I expect anything to work in my favor! The connection didn’t last—that is if there even was a connection! What was I thinking? There is no way someone on this back-water planet could have—”

A squeal came from the grass.

Hordak stopped his rant. A cry sounded out from the field and turned into a high-pitched wail. He dismounted the skiff down to the field where the grass reached his knees. A few yards away from the skiff there was something on the ground that bent the grass to make a hollow in the waves of blue green. Hordak recognized the sounds but was still surprised to approach and see a swaddled infant on the ground. Its face was scrunched up and red from the exertion of its crying. He reached down to pick up the bundle.

The first time he had held an infant was several months ago. After his first two attempts at cloning had expired in their incubation tanks, he decided to remove the third one from its tank early. It had wriggled and mewled as he dried it off, but the fight had left it quickly. While its movements had gone sluggish it had continued to whine and whimper. Obviously, his defects had been exaggerated in the cloning process and this one wouldn’t last longer than the other two. But the crying… He had decided to imitate the only reassuring sound he could think of to quiet it: the sound of the incubation tanks cycling amniotic fluid.

He tried again with this child.

“Shhh, shhh, shhh.” And so he continued until the child quieted.

It hiccupped as it caught its breath. It sniffled. Then, it blinked its eyes open.

Large blue eyes gazed up at him. The infant appeared almost as surprised as him to see another living being out here. Almost unconsciously, his thumb moved to brush the infant’s cheek dry before he stopped himself. Its hand reached out from the blanket and grasped his thumb, turning its face into his hand, like it wanted the touch.

Hordak looked around. There was no one else. They were alone.

Hordak carried the infant back to the skiff and got to work on his sensors, holding the infant with one arm. The sensors confirmed the theory that he was forming: a portal had been made and this child had arrived through it. But that still left the question of the portal’s origin. Who had made it? Was it someone from this side or was it from the larger universe outside this pocket dimension? He figured he would only have to wait. Either way, if someone had made this portal, they would come for the infant. Even he, a product of cloning, knew how attached parents were to their offspring.

He readied the rest of the equipment. Once the portal reappeared, he would send his signal out. The child, which had fallen into a doze, awoke and started crying. He went about figuring out how to give her water for the meantime. He didn’t worry too much, her parents would feed her once they arrived.

\--

It had been some time since he had last looked up at Etheria’s night sky. Four of its twelve moons shone faintly above them. The grass looked silver in their light. He would almost consider it beautiful if it weren’t for the lack of stars. He remembered looking out one of the windows in Horde Prime’s ship, long ago, at the millions of stars around they passed in flight. Some reddish in hue, some a faint blue. Others were barely visible but notable by the congregation of their siblings clustered together to make an extraordinary galaxy. He never realized how lonely it would feel to look up at a starless sky until he landed on Etheria.

“No one is coming for us,” he said aloud. He looked down at the infant, she looked right back. “We are on our own.”

Soon, he would pack up his equipment and pilot the skiff back to the Fright Zone. He would steer with one hand and hold the infant in his other arm against his chest, because of the lack of an appropriate place to put her. Her head would rest on his shoulder, face towards his neck, because she would surely cry from the cold otherwise. And he would imitate the sound of the incubator. To comfort the child.

But for the moment, he and the child looked at the moons above them, two beings far from home.


End file.
